


it's nice to say that we played in the dirt

by piratekelly



Series: what a beautiful mess this is [6]
Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Closure, Established Relationship, Forgiveness, Friendship, Heart-to-Heart, Introspection, M/M, Moving On, Starting Over, Steve's Abandonment Issues, making amends, outsider pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:07:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25394359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piratekelly/pseuds/piratekelly
Summary: Catherine has made a lot of mistakes in her life, but none weigh her down quite like the way she left things with Steve.
Relationships: Steve McGarrett/Danny "Danno" Williams, past-Steve McGarrett/Catherine Rollins
Series: what a beautiful mess this is [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/537928
Comments: 26
Kudos: 118





	it's nice to say that we played in the dirt

**Author's Note:**

> I know Cath is a divisive character. This story, no matter how hard I tried to focus on other things, wouldn't go away.
> 
> 1\. Cath is pretty much the only person left alive who could also give Steve some degree of closure. I wanted the important conversation the show would never give us.
> 
> 2\. She does not come back to try to get back together with Steve.

She’s back on the islands for the first time in two years – at least, in the sense that she’s not there for work – and it hits her almost immediately how much she’s missed this place. When she was in the service she made it a point to take her leave on Oahu as often as possible, not just because of Steve, but because it had been the only place that had ever really felt like home, a place she could _make_ her home. Hawai’i had allowed for a certain stillness in her life, a luxury she doesn’t have anymore, can’t afford to even entertain; stillness means dead end leads, wasted time, lives lost. She loves her job, feels fulfilled by it in a way she hadn’t felt since leaving the Navy, but there are days where she craves the salty ocean breeze on her face, the way she bobbed in the water on her board, the weightlessness the ocean provided on days where her soul felt too heavy to carry.

More than anything she misses the people. She misses the people she’d begun to think of as family, as ohana, people she could count on and run to in equal measure. She misses team dinners at Kamekona’s, misses beers at Steve’s, watching he and Danny bicker while everyone rolled their eyes and laughed. She misses feeling connected; for as much work as she does trying to keep her country and its people safe, she’s set up her life on the fringes of all of it. She wouldn’t change it, but she also won’t deny that it’s lonely. Her only regret is that her choices cost her the one person she could talk to who would understand. That knowledge is what has brought her home.

Catherine has made a lot of mistakes in her life, but none weigh her down quite like the way she left things with Steve.

She doesn’t regret leaving – as much as she wanted them to be forever, and she really had, because a girl doesn’t do better than someone like Steve – but she does regret that she didn’t just tell him the truth. In hindsight, the deceit feels disrespectful of the friendship they’d cultivated long before they fell into bed. She could have avoided so much hurt if she’d just told him about the CIA, about the work she’d been doing and would continue to do. He would have understood. He knows how she operates, how much she’s missed the structure and the purpose the Navy gave her, how, even with Five-0, she never quite felt fulfilled. If their roles had been reversed she can’t say with absolute certainty that he wouldn’t make the same choice. It was when her best intentions failed that she reached a point where she couldn’t keep telling herself that what she had was enough.

The trouble was always going to be getting Steve to understand that her leaving was not his fault. He’d had so many people abandon him in his life, had lost so much, and it gutted her that she now found herself among them. She hadn’t lied when she said she loved him that last time; his love was more than enough to sustain someone, ran so deep you could drown in it, was so all-encompassing it could feel overwhelming at times, but there was never room to doubt his dedication. She attributes that to the fact that Steve had reserves of it from all the years he spent having fewer and fewer people to give it to. The problem was – and probably always would be – that she wasn’t done serving her country yet, and Steve was.

After four years it hit her that they’d waited on each other long enough. Steve was loyal to a fault, and she knew he wouldn’t be the one to walk away. Steve wanted someone to choose him, to stay for him, so badly that he was willing to accept the pain of being with someone who was only half there instead of taking a chance to find what he deserved. She had been comfortable and safe, something he would come back to because she was familiar. If what they had was going to end, it would always fall to her to do it.

It had been the right choice for both of them. She’d known it the second she’d laid eyes on him when she came back the first time. He had settled, grown and tended to the roots he’d planted on this island, had gone on to make his childhood home _his_ home. He had strong friendships, was a regular at a number of local establishments, was an uncle to two great kids. He’d stopped running, stopped living for the chase. The job was just a job now, no less important, but it wasn’t his entire life. The Navy could try as hard as they wanted to call him back, but he wasn’t theirs anymore. He was Steve McGarrett: Veteran. Cop. Family man.

It had been a good look on him. She hopes it’s only gotten better.

\--

She’s reading some garbage book she picked up at the airport when she spots them.

It wasn’t intentional; at that point she still hadn’t decided whether she was going to reach out or not, weighing the pros and cons of interrupting his life again even if it was with the best of intentions.

Steve has a small boy who could only be Charlie on his shoulders, spinning them around while Charlie grins and laughs in that hysterical way that only small children can, arms wide open, trusting that Steve won’t let him fall. Danny and Grace are a few feet away, and _god_ Grace has grown so much since Cath last saw her. For all that this looks like one of their usual outings, a typical day at the beach with Uncle Steve, there’s an intimacy here that’s new to her. It isn’t until she sees Steve pull Danny toward him, grinning like a besotted fool, and kiss him, that it clicks.

She’s not going to lie and say she hadn’t wondered about the two of them, because she had. Just friends or no, those two were connected in ways that defied rational explanation, a gravitational pull that always pulled them back to each other. For all the times they’d aggravated each other – it was fifty/fifty on whether or not it was intentional – there had always been an underlying fondness to it, the kind you only feel for someone who has embedded themselves deeply in your heart. They’d always been tactile with each other, could carry an entire conversation with just a pointed look and a raised eyebrow like they’d been doing it all their lives. It hadn’t been a huge leap to wonder if maybe there wasn’t the potential for something else there, simmering below the surface.

  
It’s bittersweet, seeing Steve so obviously in love with someone else. Once upon a time she’d thought that would be them, holding hands on the beach, maybe a kid or two, but the longer they’d gone on the more she’d realized that that wasn’t in the cards for them. She’s glad he didn’t wait, that even after the way she’d left him with a broken heart on his front step he’d kept himself open to the possibility of loving someone else. And, though only a little unexpected, she’s glad it’s Danny. He can give Steve everything she never could have promised him. The scene in front of her is proof of that.

After a few minutes she packs her things and heads back to her room. This moment wasn’t hers to live, and it certainly isn’t hers to see.

\--

She wakes up in her hotel after a night of tossing and turning and texts him before she can lose her nerve. If he doesn’t want to see her, she’d understand, but she has to be certain. She has to at least try.

_In town. Can we talk?_ The message feels a little abrupt, so she quickly follows it up with, _Understand if you say no. No hard feelings._

It’s the longest thirty minutes of her life before she gets a response. He’s likely talking it over with Danny, she thinks, which is good. In the end, not talking about the important stuff had ultimately been their undoing.

_All I’ve got are hard feelings, Catherine._

She winces at that, heart sinking just a little. He only ever used her full name when he was either upset with her or worried about her. His reaction isn’t an unexpected one, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t sting just a little.

_Any way you’ll give me a chance to smooth some of them over?_

What the hell, Rollins. When did her thumbs get so stupid? Steve’s response essentially says the same thing.

_That’s a little too suggestive for comfort_.

_That’s not what I meant_ , she replies. She bites her lip, wondering if she wouldn’t be out of line to mention what she saw yesterday. Thinking it better to err on the side of caution, she adds

_If it helps, I’m not here for work. I just want to talk._

It’s another ten minutes before she gets an answer.

_Rainbow. 6pm_.

She lets out a deep exhale. _Thank you_.

\--

Rainbow has a few locations on the island, but there’s only one he could have been talking about, so she sets out for Kapahulu. He’s already there when she pulls up, sitting at a picnic table, his back turned to the parking lot. For all the dangerous things she’s done in her life, nothing has ever scared her more than facing Steve in this moment.

“Steve?”

He turns around, meets her gaze. “Catherine.”

When he doesn’t say anything else, she takes the seat across from him and sighs. The silence is strained, awkward, nothing like the ease there used to be between them. She knew he was hurt, but she hadn’t anticipated it being buried so deep.

“I’m sorry,” she blurts out.

Steve frowns. “What?”

“I’m sorry,” she repeats, voice steadier. “I’m sorry for the way things played out between us. I’m sorry I lied. I’m sorry I hurt you. I’m sorry you found out the way that you did. I’m just… sorry.”

A number of emotions flash across his face: hurt, hope, anger, sadness, others she’s too scared to name.

“You left.”

She nods. “I know.”

“You told me not to wait, and you still came back.” She nods again. It’s not like she can disagree. “You came back and let me hope you were staying.”

Catherine hates herself a little when she hears the smallest hitch in his voice when he says ‘hope’. He’s had so little of it in his life, and even fewer good reasons to try. Add it to the growing list of things she has to atone for. “I know, Steve. I’m so sorry. I should have just been honest with you. I should have _trusted_ that I could be honest with you.”

“Yeah, well,” he sighs. “It’s not like we can change it now.”

He’s not exactly wrong, but she didn’t come here to play the blame game. They can’t change it now, but they can put themselves on a different path. Stating the obvious isn’t going to give them the closure they both need.

“I did love you, you know.” She raises a hand when he opens his mouth to speak. “Wait. You need to know, Steve. I did love you. Me leaving was never about that.”

“Then what was it about?”

“Me,” she replies. “I needed something you couldn’t give me. And you needed things I couldn’t give you.”

Steve scoffs and looks over her shoulder, avoiding her eyes. “And what is it you think I needed?”

This, she knows, she can answer.

“Something sure. Someone who could be all-in, all the time.” She shrugs, matter of fact. “By the time it seemed like you were ready to settle down, I wasn’t at that point anymore.”

He sighs, scrubs at his face with both hands. “I guess both could have been better at some things.”

“While that is true,” she replies, the corner of her mouth curling up in a half smile. “I was in the wrong more often than you. I think by now it’s a well-recognized fact that our timing was always bad, Steve. I mean, you waited until you almost _died_ to even ask me out.”

Steve chuckles, nodding to himself. “I wasn’t ready to fully commit, and by the time I was nearly there you figured out commitment wasn’t what you needed.”

“You told me you loved me for the first time when I was halfway around the world.”

“And _you_ sort of ran off with my mom.”

“I deserve that one,” she admits, wincing.

“Yeah, well, you know Doris. She always finds a way to pull you in.”

“I stopped working with her after I saw you last,” she confesses. “She was always prepared to sacrifice whoever she had to to get the job done. She was willing to risk _you_ at that black site, Steve. It wasn’t her ability to compartmentalize that helped her do the job. It was the fact that she didn’t care. Like she’d had the humanity burned out of her.”

Steve is silent, contemplative, and she wonders if maybe she’s gone too far. Doris might be a righteous pain in the ass, someone she wouldn’t wish on even her worst enemy, but at the end of the day she’s still Steve’s mom. It’s hard to let go of the fact that a parent you have such fond memories of always thought of themselves before they ever considered you.

“Well,” he sighs. “You’re not wrong.”

Sensing that maybe he’s had enough emotional upheaval for now, she asks if he wants to go order food. They’ve been sitting here for a while now, her ass is starting to hurt, and she’s _starving_.

Steve is getting intimately acquainted with his ahi plate when she decides to go for broke.

“So how’s Danny?” she asks, laughing when Steve nearly spits out a mouthful of water.

“Excuse me?”

She smiles. “I saw you two at the beach yesterday. Wanna tell me about it?”

He hesitates, which is to be expected. They’ve only sort of cleared the air today, and while it’s a start, it’s going to take a long time before he trusts her enough to share the more personal parts of his life. She may know Danny, but she doesn’t know _Steve’s_ Danny. She just wants her maybe-almost-friend to know that, if he wants, he _can_ talk to her about Danny’s apparently permanent upgrade from work partner to life partner.

“He showed up at my door one morning and never really left.”

When he doesn’t offer anything else, she waves him on. “Well? Knowing you two there was way more firepower involved than you’re letting on.”

Steve smiles and it puts the brightest summer sunshine to shame.

\--

Steve walks her to her car.

Another beautiful Hawaiian sunset dims behind them, the evening growing cold as it gets darker, but the silence isn’t as loaded as it had been a few hours before. She feels better, and she thinks maybe he does too.

“I have to ask you something,” he says.

“Anything.”

“Why now?”

She bites her lip, carefully considering her answer. In the end, she only has one.

“Because I missed this, Steve. Talking like we used to, before everything got so messed up.” She slumps a little, exhaling shakily. “I missed my best friend.”

“I missed you, too.”

She almost doesn’t ask, but a part of her has to know. “You think we can ever go back to that?”

Once upon a time, not that long ago, she knows Steve would have turned her down. He would have cited the multiple times they’ve both been a little less than honest with each other, the ways they’ve hurt each other. The times she’s walked away. The moments he never quite let her in all the way. All the things they never said that they should have.

“Baby steps? I can’t promise anything, Cath. There’s…it’s a lot.”

“Yeah, Steve,” she replies, voice thick. It’s more than she thought she’d get, and more than she probably deserves. “Baby steps sounds great.”

He nods, smiling as he opens his arms for a hug. She stops just shy of throwing herself at his chest.

“I’m so happy for you, Steve. I’m so glad you found someone who loves you the way I wanted to. The way you’ve always deserved.”

He sighs, but it’s happier this time, and his arms tighten around her shoulders. “Me too, Cath.”

\--

They weren’t out of the woods yet. There were long and probably painful discussions in their future, a lot of hard questions asked and even harder answers given. An emotional rift like this doesn’t mend itself overnight, especially when there are so many other hurts tangled up in it. There were going to be moments where Steve would question her honesty and she would have to prove him wrong. Despite having known each other for over a decade they made a pretty good case for no foundation being unshakeable. One day, she hopes, someday in the future, they can be proof that it can be rebuilt.

(She has a long and very uncomfortable conversation with Danny one night while Steve is out getting drinks with Lou. Sometimes she forgets that Danny was a victim in all of this too, another recipient of one of her lies, and if she wants to make things right with Steve – and, by extension, everyone else – then she also has to make things right with the person Steve loves most in the world.

Danny doesn’t share Steve’s capacity to forgive, but he does share his willingness to try, though it’s far less enthusiastic. She knows he’s doing this for Steve’s sake – even more likely at Steve’s request – just like she knows the only way back in his good graces is to never hurt Steve again. He does make it known that she’s on thin ice, that one misstep means that she won’t be darkening their doorstep again no matter what Steve says. She tells him she’s glad that Steve has someone so fierce to guard that big, beautiful patchwork quilt of a heart.)

When Steve comes home he seems genuinely surprised that the house is still standing. He grins outright when Danny comes back from the kitchen, puts a beer in Steve’s hand, and mutters something along the lines of being _sick of moving, of course the house is still standing, I’ll live in the rubble of this place before I moves house again_.

She watches them bicker and thinks to herself that this is the best night she’s had in a while.

\--

A few days later she’s at the McGarrett-Williams house, cold beer in hand, catching up with Kono and Chin who are visiting from the mainland. She sees pictures of Abby and Sara, talks to Kono about the various places she’s been while working on the mainland. She gets introduced to Tani and Junior, who remind her so much of Steve and Danny in their early years as partners it’s almost uncanny. Steve is bickering with Lou about the proper way to grill a hamburger. Danny is down by the water with Grace and Charlie. Everything feels exactly like it should, and something inside her settles.

She’s leaving soon, and out of respect to their very tenuous friendship she’d texted Steve shortly after receiving her orders. He’d responded with a simple _thank you_ and they went about their days. She lets herself think, for just a moment, that maybe this could work.

And then, of course, her phone rings.

It’s an unknown number, but she knows who it is. It could only be one person. Not wanting to bring Steve’s incredibly protective found family in on this – Danny would probably chuck her phone in the Pacific in a fit of rage and while she gets the sentiment, she kind of needs her phone – at least at this exact moment, she steps away to answer it.

“If you want to know how he is, come see him for yourself,” she snaps, not even giving the person on the other end a chance to speak. “Don’t be surprised if he shuts the door in your face.”

She hangs up. She’d turn off her phone if she could, but, national security is kind of a 24/7 job, and she’s always on the clock.

When she walks back toward everyone Steve immediately catches her eye. He follows her into the kitchen, grabs a beer and pops the cap before handing it to her.

“What was that about?”

For just a second she debates the merits of telling him. She promised never to lie again, and she intends to keep that promise, but she also doesn’t want to play a role in something that will bring him such disappointment. That woman has caused Steve immeasurable pain, some of which Cath witnessed for herself, and it’s been such a good day for all of them. Steve has a light in his eyes that she hasn’t seen since their days in Naval Intelligence. She wants him to have that just a little bit longer, even if it’s only for a few more hours. So, she meets him in the middle.

“I’ll tell you in the morning,” she replies. And she will. There’s no reason to hide the truth, much as she wants to protect him from the fact that his mother wants to keep tabs on his life without ever wanting to be involved in it. And while her intentions are good, she can’t really blame the skeptical look he shoots her. “I promise, Steve.”

He stands there for a moment, silent, thoughtful, before finally nodding to himself. “Okay.”

This is his olive branch. She nods back, smiling. “Okay.”

\--

She keeps her promise.

It’s a start.

**Author's Note:**

> This is primarily a McDanno 'verse, but this one felt like it should be dedicated to Steve getting answers he wanted and being allowed to decide how he moves forward and heals.
> 
> It's a little nerve-wracking posting this. Cath bashing comments will be deleted. I'm just here to have fun. If you liked it, please let me know! 
> 
> piratefalls on Tumblr.


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